Moira's Nightmare
by Bloodsong 13T
Summary: Moira contemplates a dream she had, and different types of nightmares that confront her in Iron Heights. Nothing explicit, but casts a dark shadow on things behind the scenes that we never see in the show. SPOILERS for Season Two (no, not everyone has seen it YET).


**Moira's Nightmare**

_CONTENT:_

Rating: Teen

Flavor: Drama

Language: a bit

Violence: implied

Nudity: none

Sex: none

Other: prison violence

Spoilers: Season Two, first half

_Author's Note:_

I woke up this morning with Moira's voice in my head telling me about this dream she had, though it meandered on to different topics. I tried to transcribe it as accurately as I could.

This takes place in early Season Two, just before Moira's trial.

* * *

**Moira's Nightmare**

===#===

I dreamt that I woke up, and there was the List. My first thought was that Malcolm Merlyn had returned to haunt me, and fear squeezed my chest until I could hardly breathe. But I hadn't had any nightmares about him since the Undertaking.

Before that fateful night, he had plagued my thoughts, both waking and dreaming. He was a serpent I had clasped to my breast, thinking him a friend. Then the snake began whispering. Asking me to do things. Telling me to do things. All the while, its fangs were poised over my heart.

I had nightmares of the things Malcolm Merlyn would do to my daughter. Things he would do to me, if I failed to obey. Of what he'd done to my husband.

Confessing my sins seemed to free me from his clutches. When I heard he was dead, I could not believe it. I wanted to see, for myself. I needed to see, to _know_ he could never hurt me or my family again. Well, the criminal justice system doesn't cater to distraught mothers, so I had to take it on faith. They said the Vigilante had killed him, and if anyone could manage it...

Anyway, in my dream, it wasn't Malcolm but Robert who came to me. He tried to tell me something, but I could not hear his words. I tried to read the names in the List, but the letters twisted and slithered away from my gaze. I tried to touch my husband, to hold him, but I could not reach him. I tried to tell him that it was over, the nightmare. Malcolm was dead; I was free.

I don't know if he heard me.

I woke up, my face damp from tears.

I no longer dream often, not since I came to Iron Heights. In truth, I barely sleep at all. I am not a prisoner here, I am a detainee, far too wealthy to be allowed to roam free no matter how high the bail is set. By law, I am supposed to be still innocent until proven guilty.

Yet in every pair of eyes here, I see the truth. Accusation. Condemnation. Anger. Hate. From the inmates and guards alike. Their silent glares cut at me like tiny knives, and I pretend to be impervious to it. I had my reasons for what I'd done. They wouldn't understand. Frankly, I can't blame them.

They usually come at night. Though any dim lonely corner of the prison will do, any time of day. I try not to let my guard down, but it's hard, so hard. It exhausts me more than the sleepless nights.

It always comes as a shock. The floor is so hard everywhere in this place, the tile, the concrete... it takes my breath away when I hit it. I don't know who it is; I can't see through the thicket of fists and feet. At night, in my cell, they always start with a pillowcase over my head. In the morning, my cell mates act as if nothing has happened. It's always the same, blank, accusing eyes; cold, dead stares.

They only hit me where the bruises won't show, though in coveralls, that's pretty much everything except face and hands. I suppose I should be grateful for such small mercies. When my children come to visit me... when they finally come, after so many months, they won't see. It won't hurt them. They're my tiny beacons of light in this sea of darkness. I can't let them be hurt more. The pain stops with me.

No matter how battered and bruised I may be, I will weather any storm to protect my children.

They're horrified by this threat of execution hanging over my trial. Frankly, I'm grateful for it. It's the DA's offer of a lifetime of imprisonment that scares me. Even with the slim, distant possibility of parole, I can't face it. Five hundred and three families were shattered the night of the Undertaking. My hundred and eighty or so sleepless nights don't begin to make up for that.

Many of the residents in the high security section of Iron Heights are members of those families. If I go into one of those long, dark corridors, I know I won't survive. I won't want to survive it.

They don't understand - my children, my lawyer - why I find the thought of death by lethal injection so much more appealing.

The inmates already call me Malcolm Merlyn's bitch. If they find out the grain of truth in that... Oh God, have mercy on me. Please release me from this nightmare.

Please make it mercifully quick.

===_X_===


End file.
